An ominous narrative

It would seem that the United States president’s resolve to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan by December 2018 has been frustrated by the Pentagon and Langley by persuading the president to avoid a dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan. The fact is the American design to shift the battlefield to Pakistan has been defeated by Pakistan’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

Mr Trump committed a huge mistake when in answer to a question by a journalist he said: “I want to immediately withdraw from Afghanistan, but then we have a nuclear Pakistan there…..so I have to listen to the generals”. Did he miss Iran? In retrospect, it seems, one might add to his statement: “then we have the CPEC and the Gwadar deep sea port, which is a part of China’s BRI initiative”.

While Pakistan has gone the proverbial extra mile in persuading the Afghan Taliban to talk with the American envoy and the Afghan government to make the peace process and reconciliation a success, the US has neither lifted economic and military sanctions imposed on Pakistan nor eased the economic pressure applied through the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Action Task Force.

Meanwhile, the Afghan president and his government have been rendered irrelevant by the Taliban who have refused to negotiate with them. They are leaving no stone unturned to show Pakistan in a bad light. They also continue to allow India to use Afghan soil to launch proxies for subversion and sabotage in Pakistan. Their acts of terrorism are now being projected as evidence of Islamic State gaining a foothold in Pakistan.

Several Western think tanks have spreading the idea of IS focusing on South Asia after its loss of territory in Syria and Iraq. India has been quick to link the Kashmiri freedom struggle to non-state Pakistan-based actors. The India-US narrative of an IS threat in South Asia leaves Afghanistan in the background and aims at projecting some proscribed radical organizations active in Pakistan as IS collaborators. The effort is meant to keep Pakistan’s armed forces tied down on the internal front.

The narrative building is reminiscent of the 2001 exercise with it talks of terrorist presence in Pakistan including Al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. It was alleged that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals was vulnerable to take over by extremists and that the state was quite fragile and facing economic collapse. In short, that Pakistan was not much different from Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq.

Some Western think tanks have been spreading the idea of an ISIS focus on South Asia following its loss of territory in Syria and Iraq

India is trying to stage more operations like Pulwama and blame them on “Pakistan-based IS”.

Ironically, terrorists attacks in Sri Lanka that either looked like a reaction to white supremacist killing scores of Muslims in Christchurch in New Zealand or a mere stage managed operation to punish Sri Lanka for giving Hambantota port to China, got strangely claimed after more than 48 hours by the ISIS, which had roots in Indian Tamil Nadu and Chennai. Thus the menacing agenda of shifting the war zone to Pakistan is in the process of taking off and we are likely to see more incidents of terrorism as was witnessed at the Hajveri shrine in Lahore on May 8.

Somewhat similar narratives were spread and faulty threat assessments were made after 9/11, against Al Qaeda for invading Afghanistan and engulfing Pakistan in it, simultaneously allowing the AQ splinters to travel to Iraq and Syria with lock stock and barrel. As the world witnessed transformation of 1980s’ Mujahedeen in to Afghan Taliban and non-Afghan Mujahedeen into the AQ, followed by the AQ in Iraq, the AQ in Syria, the AQIS and finally the ISIS by 2014…. it simply enabled US and NATO allies to effectively decimate Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, nevertheless. Most astonishingly, despite claims of defeating and destroying ISIS as was claimed for the AQ in Afghanistan, the same Frankenstein monsters are back to the place of origin i.e. in Afghanistan; no wonder as to why Afghanistan has remained an arena for the Great Games for the last almost 200 years. It is mind boggling to see these name changing ghosts to travel all over the globe undetected, acquire sophisticated weapons and munitions, logistic support and enormous sum of international currencies without being detected by FATF and most modern and capable intelligence agencies of the countries unable to do much about their indoctrination, travels, assembly, grouping, funding, arming and operations; thus just enabling NATO forces and local allies to effectively pulverize Muslims countries divided on sectarian and ethnic lines, killing innocent civilians, destroying their military and economic potentials including whole civilization. Call it clash of civilizations or resurgence of neo-crusades. Strangely, the so called ISIS has been busy targeting Muslims only on sectarian grounds, a fault line among Muslims exploited to the hilt at both intra and inter-state levels, as was done in the past by colonial powers.

According to latest threat perception by US/ NATO, emerging China, resurgent Russia and Nuclear Pakistan along with potential nuclear Iran and North Korea are on the priority list. Hence, ISIS threat will be kept alive and hovering all over Asia-Pacific region till remaining premeditated objectives are not achieved. Pakistan is playing a key role in Chinese BRI due to CPEC/Gwadar port besides deep defence cooperation; Iran and North Korea’s politico-economic and military proximity to Russia is bound to show them as a red flag to NATO’s bull. Therefore, the fresh narrative of ISIS focusing on Asia-Pacific looks set to take care of strategic interests of US/NATO in Indo-Pacific by making alliances, deploying armed forces and ensuring domination of land and sea lines of communications for uninterrupted flow of energy and trade.

Needless to say that Pakistan ought to avoid falling prey to the new scheme, identify the motives of new narratives, and harness the non-state actors sooner than later besides ruthlessly defending its borders against illegal crossings. Pakistan’s pivotal role in bringing peace to Afghanistan is suggested to be linked with written and practical guarantees against the ominous fresh ISIS war clouds hovering around.